PhillyDeals:
Taxpayer-backed Traffic.com to close Malvern offices
October 05, 2011|By
Joseph N. DiStefano, Inquirer Staff Writer
The
closing of Traffic.com's Malvern offices, announced last week by owner Nokia's
Navteq division, will idle 300 data professionals. That's bad enough.
It is
also a blow to people who think the federal government should select which
private companies get taxpayer support.
Starting
in 2000, Traffic.com consumed $50 million in no-bid U.S. Department of Transportation
grants to develop online highway-traffic data, with backing from former Sen.
Arlen Specter and former Rep. Bud Shuster (R., Pa.).
The
money helped Traffic.com win contracts with Microsoft, Comcast, the Weather
Channel, and others. At its peak, it hired more than 600 workers.
But critics in
industry and in Congress, some from districts with rival traffic start-ups,
complained that the government's favoritism to Traffic.com unfairly pushed
competitors out of the market.
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